“I scented her the moment I came to her side.”Jolt wiped the tears from his face, embarrassed by his emotional display.
“I am sorry you found her this way---but she will recover,”Knox assured him as the pilot lifted off the transport.“The nanites have already stopped the bleeding from her wound.”
“Her physical injuries will heal, but what about the damage to her psyche?”
“The scan revealed four sources of DNA from the attackers. I have sent you the codes.”
“They are dead men walking,” Jolt growled aloud.
“While she is healing I will administer psychogenic agents that will recede the memories and hopefully prevent post-traumatic stress disorder,” Knox assured him. “I just don’t know how long it will take.”
Jolt stepped to the other side of the stretcher and looked down at the battered female. He gently caressed her face, pushing back the hair off her forehead. “She will have all the time she needs. I’ve waited my whole life, I can wait until she is ready to be my mate.”
Ten minutes later they landed at the former manufacturing facility they appropriated to house the cyborgs on the eastern side of Farringay. It was one of the few large facilities that were still intact, large enough to accommodate the construction teams and the equipment.
The complex was comprised of four massive rectangular buildings connected that formed a rectangle around a large strip of land in the middle. It may have been a garden where employees had once taken their breaks and meals. Now it was overgrown with tall grass and weeds. But making it aesthetically pleasing again was not a priority.
Except for numerous suites of offices, the massive buildings were bare bones industrial gray with smooth concrete floors. Apparently, the company had gone bankrupt before the war and sold off all the equipment and furnishings. Some parts of the manufacturing areas were sectioned off by partitions, but they were only closed off on three sides.
Only Jolt and some of the team leaders had private quarters. The rest of the crews were relegated to bunks in the industrial sections.
They landed the shuttle in the front of the complex closest to the door to Knox’s medical bay. A suite of offices had been converted for that purpose. Jolt accompanied Knox and the injured woman on the stretcher. He had already notified one of the men to take over his section in the demolition.
Jolt watched Knox work quickly. Knox lifted her off the stretcher and laid her in the regeneration bed. An IV started, and a mask covered her nose and mouth as she was washed down with an antibacterial solution. Knox set the controls cybernetically to place her in a coma while the nanites reconstructed her damaged tissues.
Jolt was torn between wanting to avenge the female and wanting to stay with her to be there when she woke up. Knox could see the emotions on his commander’s face.
“Jolt, she’s going to be out for at least twenty-four hours. You’ve got their DNA profiles. Should be easy to find them and still be back before she wakes up.”Knox sent through their private network. He knew Jolt needed a way to work through the powerful emotions that he was experiencing for the first time.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure. I can let you know when I find she is ready to come out of it,”Knox replied.
Jolt nodded and took another look at her on the bed. He wasn’t really sure how she usually looked under the swelling and bruises. She had short blond hair the one eye she had opened looked green with a little gold around the middle. Her cheekbone was broken, and her lip was split.
Despite Knox’s assurances Jolt still felt reluctant to leave. Another look at her battered face solidified his decision to find the ones who did this to her. Jolt had smelled them on her; he could track them. He strode out of the medical bay and out to the transport to pick up the trail from where he had found her.
Finding them was easy once he picked up their trail because they weren’t trying to hide. Apparently, they thought they were at the top of the food chain. The four of them were sitting around a fire outside a wrecked building. They had started a fire and were roasting some kind of meat over it---probably stolen. Even the smell of roasting meat couldn’t disguise the stench of them that they had left on Jolt’s female. They were drinking some homemade swill and talking shit about what they’d done to that female---Jolt’s female.
Jolt made no attempt to hide his approach. He wanted them to see him coming, a specter of death in gleaming gray body armor and helmet. As he approached, the sun was at his back, and he cast a long shadow over them. They went quiet and looked up at him towering above them. One male pulled out a projectile pistol. Jolt kicked it out of his hand before he could even aim it.
Then he stunned them unconscious with his hand weapon. One by one he zip-tied their hands and feet together then strung them by their wrists to the branches of a tree. He found a bucket of rainwater and threw some on each of them to wake them.
First, he broke a few of their bones with well-placed punches. Then, he took out two knives, one for each hand. Razor sharp, he cut their clothes off, deliberately making shallow cuts in their flesh with each stroke. By the time he finished, they were each covered with streams of blood running down their bodies. They screamed with each cut.
It had been too long since he had killed beings, even longer since he’d been able to take his time at it. As far as Jolt was concerned anyone who treated a female as they had deserved no mercy. Jolt showed them none.
“What do you want? Why are you doing this?” one thug whined.
“The female you damaged is mine!” Jolt growled vehemently and punched him in the balls making him scream again. He methodically worked on each of them in turn.
He was beyond anger. He was in kill mode. Inflicting pain on the human garbage that hurt his female was the most pleasure he had felt in a long time.
He punched, cut, and twisted sensitive body parts on each one multiple, times until their responses came in whimpers instead of screams. He stood back and took stock of what he had done. The four hung limply from the branches. Jolt had spent hours inflicting pain until he finally felt satisfied they had suffered enough. Anyway, they were all unconscious and no longer reacted to his attempts to hurt them more.
Jolt finally carved an R for ‘rapist’ on each one of their chests, then cut their throats and left them hanging as a warning to others. Killing them was exhilarating, and they would never hurt anyone again.
But that wasn’t why Jolt and his brothers had come back to Earth. Still, he felt no remorse. Any of his brothers would have done the same.
